


Multiversal Axioms

by Angikirby (Angi_K)



Category: Axiom Verge
Genre: Brief mentions of major character death, Cameos, Cheat Code Abuse, Christmas, Classic Cheat Codes, Culture with no Christmas, Gen, Hair Brushing, Justin Bailey - Freeform, Major Character Dies Multiple Times, Making Up Names For Creatures, Mediocre Kung Fu Movies, Passcode Origins, Passcodes, Pre-mutated Variant, Self-Doubt, Will add to it over time, Workaholic Trace, speedrun
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-01-10 07:13:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 3,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12294030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angi_K/pseuds/Angikirby
Summary: A series of short fics from the moments of Trace's life, on either Earth or Sudra, as various states of self. Many chapters contain spoilers for the plot twists and endings.





	1. Justin Bailey

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a very long time since I wrote fanfiction I'm happy with enough to post. The first chapter here was inspired by both Wildragon's comic (http://wildragon.tumblr.com/post/133480853841/apart-for-metroid-reference-i-wonder-if-this) and the fact that the code is a reference to the first Metroid game.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trace discovers that an old passcode still works, but a little too well.

_Zi, Sudra_

Honestly, this passcode tool isn't as difficult to use as Veruska makes it out to be.  
Trace can fairly easily tell how to work the thing just from the interface alone. He even has a code he can already try out, written in a purple note left conveniently across from the room his drone found the tool. Trace quickly puts the command into the tool:  
`'REVEAL-SUDRAN'`  
Instantly, the cuneiform writing on the two grey clay tablets in Trace's possession changes into actually legible text. While cool in and of itself, this really makes the scientist curious about what else this tool is capable of. Perhaps it truly can "manipulate reality." If Trace comes across any more phrases that fit the input length of twelve characters, he should definitely try them. One such phrase comes to mind at the moment, from memories of a certain NES game:  
`'JUSTIN-BAILEY'`  
As instantly as the translation from the Sudran script to English, Trace's clothes transform into a skin-tight leotard and matching boots.  
The code actually works.  
How is this possible? Why did Athetos make this specific code functional for this tool? What's even the point?!  
"Is that what it does?" Veruska decides now to speak up, "Quite enticing indeed!"  
Trace fiddles with the accursed thing in order to turn off the damned code.


	2. An Evening with Doubt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trace tries to have a relaxing evening at home.

_New Mexico, USA, Earth_

The moment Trace returns home, he grabs a TV dinner from the freezer in the kitchen and tosses it in the microwave to "cook". He sighs a breath of relief once he collapses on the couch in the living room.  
It's only been a day since his ordeal on the alien planet Sudra and reawakening back home. Yet, he seems completely incapable of keeping his mind away from the subject. All day at work, he's been distracted by the questions that even now plague his mind. It got to the point where Hammond had to ask him if he was okay.  
Is he okay? Can he honestly answer that question right now?  
Was what happened to him really not so strange? Was it all just a dream? Or is he dreaming right now? Is he even able to tell the difference?  
Trace sighs again. The questions just won't stop.  
He reaches over to grab the TV remote on the table in front of him. The screen flicks on to show the boring newscaster drone on about crap he doesn't care for at the moment. Switching through the channels for something to watch, he stops on a kung fu movie. Two characters who look exactly the same are fighting each other and confusing the police officers watching them.  
Oh God, it's this movie. The one where one of those two characters has to kill all of his alternate selves in order to become some immortal god? Trace quickly flips through the channels again. He'd rather not be paranoid that his "other self" is coming to kill him.  
Trace's attention is pulled away from the TV when the microwave goes off, alerting him that his once-frozen meal is done thawing. He gets up off the couch and grabs his food to eat, while watching a hopefully better movie.


	3. Justin Bailey 2: The Prequel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So why does this particular code exist anyway?

_Kur, Sudra_

"How is progress going on the Sudran-English cipher?"  
"I'm working on it." The Gir-Tab Variant briefly gives a questioning glance over towards his original self before diving back into the piles of digital documents pooled around him. "Are you even sure your passcode tool is going to work?"  
"Of course not."  
"So what is that, then?"  
"A little test script I've written with the Sudran code." Athetos opens up the passcode tool and readies it for input. "Think of it as a 'hello world' kind of thing." Unfortunately, 'HELLO-WORLD' is too short of a code to use, so Athetos has thought up the next best thing. He inputs the code:  
`'JUSTIN-BAILEY'`  
The moment the code is activated, the copy's clothing transform into a somewhat familiar-looking skin-tight leotard and matching boots. Though he had hoped the revealing outfit would be... a different color.  
But when the clone notices his sudden change in appearance, he jumps up in surprise. "What the hell?! Athetos, what did you do?!"  
"It's something from a very old video game. I do not expect you to remember it." Hell, he's surprised that he still remembers something from so many years ago.  
"But what's even the point?!"  
"Testing," was the one-word answer.  
"You know it works for yourself as well, right?" Gir-Tab points out.  
Does it? He glances down at his own clothes. Indeed, the code has also forced him into a leotard, magenta this time, matching boots to boot!  
Well, at least it's the right color this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like to think there were more things than just the pathogen Athetos used to experiment on his clones.  
> And this would most likely be set sometime before the Variant gets corrupted into his boss form, so that's why he speaks perfect English here. Otherwise, I'm not entirely sure how a giant scorpion thing can even help translate a language.


	4. Communication Disrupt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's almost as if she does this on purpose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's decent enough, but I wish I could come up with a good title. I'll have to fix it later, though.  
> Edit: Came up with a title, finally.

_Edin, Sudra_

Trace exits the hidden breach pocket with a spring in his step. Despite the topsy-turvy, eye-bleeding environments, as though they were projected through a broken CRT television, Trace managed to find his way around the area. He even found a sweet Scissor Beam in there!  
It's possible, Trace hypothesizes, that the bizarre rift has been generated procedurally, but what algorithm was used to create it, he has yet to figure out.  
"Why did you not turn back?" Elsenova's voice breaks the calm silence and Trace rolls his eyes. "I tell you, it is dangerous..."  
"What's the problem? I mean, it's not like anything in there was any more dangerous than what I've already seen." Trace sighs. "Is it the corruption? Or were you worried I'd get stuck or something?"  
And once again, she clams up on him. Just like every time he starts asking questions.  
"You know, I really hate it when you do that," Trace comments bluntly as he heads back out into the lush gardens, the green fields of grass far out of the way from his crumbled path of blue rubble. He looks up to the stars lighting up the sky, beyond them lay the lightly visible frayed edges of the Breach.  
"I just wish you'd talk to me..."


	5. The Mild Annoyance of Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trace briefly reflects on this strange twist to his mortality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this one after the many fails I've had during my first playthrough.

_Mar-Uru, Sudra_

Getting mauled by shrieking ghouls driven insane by the pathogen. Getting blasted by a much larger variant of his own gun. Drowning in pink acid. Getting crushed by falling boulders. Getting burned to a crisp by a flamethrower coming from a scorpion's tail. Hallucinating his own transformation and subsequent destruction at the hands of his own self. Getting swarmed by all manner of pests, be they obnoxious hopping bushes, ghostly teal orbs, space bats, annoying firefly helicopters, or green spinning ball-strings. Getting pierced by a quintet of gigantic wasp stingers. Getting blasted again, this time by a massive guardian sentinel robot. Having been bodied multiple times by mutated clones of his older, genocidal self.  
The first time Trace died, he couldn't believe it when he was told so. He even questioned if he was still himself. But after the hundredth goddamned death or so, and finding out that he is a dispensable clone that can come back to life by way of the egg-shaped rebirth chambers saving his nanogates' memories before creating yet another clone, Trace starts to believe that he was never himself in the first place.  
Groggily waking up in one of the aforementioned rebirth chambers yet again, Trace briefly wonders if it's even worth it to get out this time when all that awaits him is severe pain.  
No. He has to keep going. He has to reach his original, corrupted self. He's sure he's almost there anyway, so a few more deaths are nothing. Especially compared to the worst death he's ever experienced: getting his nanogates shut down by a vindictive alien robotic woman.  
So, if he doesn't want her to go back on her word to not kill him again, he can't back down.


	6. MissingNo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trace comes across an unexpected entity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just had to. Especially after writing about the Justin Bailey code.

_Ukkin-Na, Sudra_

"Whew, pretty hot in this place," Trace comments on the sweltering heat, his vision starting to get hazy.  
One of the few floating sentry robots in the room starts to chase after him the moment it notices him. When Trace turns his glitch ray gun on the robot, it suddenly transforms into something he has never expected.  
Firing his weapon at the transformed glitch of a sentry bot, Trace notices that the weapon's bullets have massively increased in size and power and are now capable of going through walls. It was then that Trace realizes that the weapon he has currently equipped is in the sixth slot of the disruptor gun.  
This couldn't be a coincidence. Just like the old NES game, memories of a certain pair of Game Boy games start to come to mind.  
After destroying the other robots with his extremely boosted weapon, he moves on to the next room. The weapon then returns to normal. Thankfully, there floats the same type of sentry robot Trace corrupts to regain the buff.  
The heat becomes too much for Trace to handle. It soon becomes apparent that the pathogen Athetos has unleashed is affecting Trace and causing him to hallucinate.  
But when Trace later returns to these rooms after getting cured, he discovers that the robots' glitched behavior is no hallucination.


	7. A New Self Awareness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While contemplating how things went so badly, Athetos becomes aware of the existence of a rogue Variant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by the in-game Note titled "Trace."

_Mar-Uru, Sudra_

How had things ended up like this?  
Athetos had asked himself this question for God knows how long. That was all he could do up here, holed up in the Breach Elevator, surrounded by the Breach pulled in around the whole planet with the Breach Attractor he took from the planet's denizens before they all died, suspended in a liquid vat that draws out his already too long life: ask questions and wonder what the hell went so wrong.  
Was this all worth it? The loss of an entire planet's population? The technology left behind that no one could have even been able to use properly in what seemed like centuries? The towering war machines that still remain active wanting his demise?   
An alarm suddenly goes off. It seems that a foreign entity has entered Xedur's chambers. How is this possible, when nothing that can be considered both organic and sentient exists anymore? There's something vaguely familiar about this entity, an innocence that only a former version of himself he was certain that he had long since discarded would have. A purity untainted by the broken, glitched-out mess of a world this damned planet has become.  
Somehow, the being has control of the AD. What's more startling is that the being has allegiance with the war machines that want Athetos dead. This foreign entity could potentially undo everything Athetos has worked for. Regardless of how it got here, Athetos makes a decision.  
The new variant needs to die.


	8. Speedrun Mode

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trace finds himself back at the beginning, but there's an unexpected twist...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I often ask myself questions when I'm watching videos of these games or when I'm playing myself. One of these was, "How would a character act in-universe if someone is attempting a speedrun of their game?"  
> Hilarious that I'm posting this chapter hours before this year's Summer Games Done Quick begins.

_Eribu, Sudra_

Trace wakes up feeling a strange sense of deja vu. As the top half of the egg-shaped machine lifts up from over his prone body, he notices a white text timer counting up in his peripheral vision. A sudden feeling of urgency overcomes him and he pushes himself off of the bottom half.  
Hurrying into the adjacent room, Trace grabs the Axiom Disruptor he somehow knew was laying on the floor for him. Where he's going to, he doesn't quite know yet, but something is telling him that he needs to run through this as quickly as possible.


	9. Cheater's Trap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trace finds out how the Passcode Tool "manipulates reality".

_Zi, Sudra_

Along with the passcodes he's found throughout Sudra, Trace has also discovered another use for the tool. He is somehow able to essentially "cheat" by inputting codes to modify parameters of his own data. One code reduces the pain inflicted on him whenever a creature hits him down to nothing, granting him invulnerability. He still flinches, however; he can't help it.  
Of course, one must be really careful when handling such great power. This code that maximizes the velocity of his jump physics is quite different from changing how much damage he takes. It isn't until he's actually jumped once that Trace realizes that the code is far too volatile, and now he's trapped in the ceiling. Crap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These parametric passcodes can do a LOT of crazy weird things. Here's where to find the whole list: http://trollbu.de/axiomverge/


	10. Taming the Wild Mane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hammond helps brush Trace's hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually wanted to draw this for the longest time, but I kept putting it off. Well, here it is in the form of a Multiversal Axioms chapter!

_New Mexico, USA, Earth_

"Hold still," Hammond orders as he tries to pull the brush through Trace's thick, wild hair. What's not helping is Trace's constant flinching forward whenever the brush pulls on the more knotted locks.  
"I'm trying," Trace retorts, trying not to fidget so much under the brush yanking its way through the strands.  
Hammond sighs. "If your hair wasn't always such a goddammed mess..." He punctuates the last word with a harsher tug on one of the knots, causing Trace to recoil a bit further.  
"You wouldn't be trying to rip my head off?" Trace snarks.  
"Oh please. Quit being such a baby."  
"Ugh," Trace replies, glaring at nothing.  
Moments pass of Hammond pulling at Trace's head in all sorts of directions until Hammond is able to cleanly run the brush through Trace's hair without obstruction. The smooth metallic surface of the pair of sunglasses slides onto Trace's face and rests on his nose and ears. "There," comes Hammond's voice from in front of Trace, then a short moment later, from behind again, "Let's go." Trace feels the sensation of movement as Hammond pulls Trace's wheelchair backward before turning, then pushing forward onwards.


	11. Ain't No Rest for the Physicist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trace doesn't want to take a break.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On my tumblr, an anonymous user sent me this ask (http://angisfunland.tumblr.com/post/176388246653/is-it-me-or-does-trace-always-look-tired-poor). That's where the idea for this chapter came from.

_New Mexico, USA, Earth_

Trace rubs his strained eyes as he continues to stare at the computer monitor. Suppressing a yawn, he examines the data and visualizations of the many virtual simulations, squinting at the numbers and images on his screen.  
He's been sitting at his desk like this for hours now. The experiment earlier that day had resulted in failure, and he's been spending that time trying to figure out why it's not working. What is he doing wrong?  
Trace rubs out the crick that has formed in the back of his neck, glaring through the pair of glasses that keep slipping from the bridge of his nose. He really should take a break, but he can't look away from the illuminating problem reflecting off his glasses. He can't just let this go.  
He rubs his eyes again, irritation growing. A growing migraine pounds at his skull. His knuckles crack with each movement over his keyboard. He tries to reread the data again, but his vision starts to blur.  
With a sigh of defeat, Trace's eyes slip closed and he slumps over his desk, arms crossed in front of him and head nuzzled into them.


	12. Creature Naming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's a physicist, not a taxonomist!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The enemy names come from the Multiverse Edition's Artbook. It even says in the book that the names aren't canon, but what the developer thought Trace would name them.

_E-Kur-Ma, Sudra_

The temple is apparently hiding a kind of small garden, flora that has overgrown over the centuries. So much so that the plants themselves have been granted movement and hostile demeanors.  
The green shrubs bounce aggressively at Trace whenever he approaches. As soon as he turns his glitch ray on one of the darker green shrubs, it slows down and a sequence of letters in an apparent sans-serif font appears over it.  
Before Trace could piece together the string of letters, however, a lighter green shrub latches onto him. It takes a bit of time to shake off the furglot. He came up with the name for those things when he encountered them quite a while earlier. They look like little green furballs, don't they?  
Trace moves deeper into the garden, trying to dodge more dark-green shrubs attacking him. These shrubs, he dubs the name "artichoker". Like artichokes threatening to choke him out?  
Slender, golden, fish-like creatures spring out of tunnels in arcs. The hooks on their tails can snag on Trace's trenchcoat. Even if he could glitch-dash out of it, he still tries to avoid the hookfish he came up with the name for as he heads further into the temple's garden.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can't believe it's been a year of almost consistently posting these short fics! Thanks for sticking around for so long! Here's to another year!


	13. So-Called Master Theory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trace achieves his biggest goal, but with unforeseen consequences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written based on a prompt generated here: http://springhole.net/writing_roleplaying_randomators/fanfictionplot.htm  
> The prompt: A major protagonist's fondest wish suddenly comes true, but it turns out to have terrible consequences.

_New Mexico, USA, Earth_

When Trace started working on this project, of course, he didn't think it was going to be easy. The experiment he tried to conduct with Hammond was going to bring to light the true nature of reality. Unfortunately, something went wrong, as things tend to do. A pressure valve froze over, resulting in a literally blinding explosion. The laboratory crumbled, crushing the scientists working inside.  
Trace woke up sometime later, trapped in darkness. Blind and crippled, he laid bedridden for months in the hospital. He's spent that time thinking. Thinking of what this could mean for himself, and for the greater universe. Trace's thoughts eventually lead him to a scientific epiphany. The idea was this: any conscious being brought about by any ruleset of data will see that ruleset as real, regardless of whether that ruleset is currently active or even available. It didn't matter that he couldn't see or walk anymore; he was still able to perceive himself as "alive."  
As soon as they left the hospital, Trace told Hammond of his ideas, and together, they wrote and published a paper that would have been a new "Theory of Everything."  
Things were good for a while. The media totally loved the idea, putting Trace's face in many magazines. However, people started to change their tune not too much time later. Other physicists laughed at Trace's idea, calling it fringe, unscientific, calling him insults, derogatives. One nickname stuck, "Athetos," without a place. Someone who isn't allowed to have an accepted opinion.  
Was Trace wrong this whole time? Was what he thought really invalid? He didn't know anymore.  
Another thought occurred to him, though: why can't he just prove it?  
How Trace did it, he doesn't quite remember but using his idea, he and Hammond were able to cross into another world.


	14. A Planet Without Christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trace muses on the biggest cultural difference between Earth and Sudra.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obligatory Holiday Special, Go!

_Kur, Sudra_

The snowfall became heavier the higher up the mountain Trace climbed. It was almost peaceful at the peak. The visible edges of the Breach illuminated the pure white blanket on the usually brown, craggy brush that covered this area's cavernous floor.  
Somewhat like lights on a Christmas tree, Trace thought. Christmas. Christmas wreaths, Christmas stockings, Christmas carols, Christmas gifts, and good old fashioned Christmas cheer.  
None of those things existed on Sudra. Just from reading the translated writing on the grey clay tablets and the translated text on the yellow biomechanical tablets, anyone could tell that this was an entirely different culture.  
So what did they celebrate here? Did they celebrate any holiday here?


End file.
